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Furniture in Asia Can Arrive
Different From Its Store Look

By

Jon E. Hilsenrath and

Cris Prystay Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

Updated Jan. 14, 2000 12:30 a.m. ET

While poking through dusty furniture shops in Bali early last year, Susan Sadler was bewitched by a pair of teak end tables. Little did she know, as she handed over $200 and arranged to have the pieces shipped home, that she was also buying an army of tiny termites who have spent the last year transforming the once-elegant pieces into a pile of dust.

"When you looked at it there, there was no way to tell," says Mrs. Sadler....